


Gacela of the Dark Death

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Based on a Poem, Bittersweet, Burns, Character Death, Childhood, Churches & Cathedrals, Dark, Dark Fantasy, Dark Side vs Light Side (Star Wars), Death, F/M, Fantasy, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fire, Games, Ghost Sex, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:34:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29954160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Every night, Rey walks through a churchyard. Every night, she seeshim.The man that glides in black. But he never notices her.Until one night he does.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25
Collections: Reylo Creatives: Anniversary Exchange 2021





	Gacela of the Dark Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RumiReneeClarke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RumiReneeClarke/gifts).



> **Content Note: Rey is childlike in this fic, but she is an adult that has forgotten all of her memories and is trying to put them back together.**

Porque quiero dormir el sueńo de las manzanas  
para aprender un llanto que me limpie de tierra;  
porque quiero vivir con aquel nińo oscuro  
que quería cortarse el corazón en alta mar.

_(Original, in Spanish)_

  
Because I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,  
and learn a mournful song that will clean all earth away from me,  
because I want to live with that shadowy child  
who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.

_(Translation, in English)_

**_—_ "[Gacela de la Muerte Oscura ](https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/es/Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca,_Federico-1898/Gacela_de_la_muerte_oscura/en/5652-Gacela_of_the_Dark_Death?tr_id=1505)** **[(Gacela of the Dark Death)](https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/es/Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca,_Federico-1898/Gacela_de_la_muerte_oscura/en/5652-Gacela_of_the_Dark_Death?tr_id=1505)" by Federico Garcia Lorca, translated into English by Robert Bly **

* * *

**Chapter One: oscura**

She has seen him before. The man that glides in black. His dark lace-up boots sink into the grass, rustling the cowl shielding his face. She tracks him as he rests the same deep red roses on a quarter moon gravestone made of yew, every week from a hill, like the toll of church bells.

He never seems to notice her. Sometimes she thinks he looks in her direction, snapping his head up, eyes piercing through her, the color indistinguishable in the moonlight. But eventually, they always turn away. Never truly seeing her. 

Tonight, she moves closer, hanging on his words. His voice is foreign and accented—it reminds her of kings on thrones and knights in battle. He calls the gravestone _father._ Talks about childhood days in the field, sipping honey straight from the hive, running through gardens and fields of flowers—carnations and sweet violets—sitting on turf benches wrapped around trees. Long winters with winds that slice through his bones, boots brushing wilted, tall grass. Like he’s singing to her. She dozes, lying in the dirt, and when she wakes, he’s vanished. 

The sun rises and falls. Father Elis doesn’t notice her, either. She tries to speak to him, but he doesn’t look up. “It’s me!” she screams. “Me, me, me!” People gather for a funeral—they carry a tiny casket and place primroses over its grave. A woman dabs at her tears while a man wraps his arms around her.

She stares at its name on the gravestone, Amice. Amice, Amice, Amice. But who is _me?_ What is _her_ name? Maybe she never had one to begin with. 

The man comes back. Talks about his childhood and leaves the roses. Goes away. It rains and rains and rains and rains, but she doesn’t feel it. She brings the roses to her face but can’t breathe them in. Rosewater. Someone used to smell like that, but she can’t remember the person nor remember their scent. Dark blonde hair. Or was it brown? 

She sobs. 

When she looks up, he’s standing by the same headstone. Gliding in his usual black. 

“Help me!” she cries out. He doesn’t answer. He continues his speech about honeyed summers and icy rains, and then walks away. “Wait!” She follows him down cobblestone alleys, through horse dung, lifting up her chemise. 

The castle on the hill. She’s never been inside its dim-lit stone walls. She trails him through the hall and up the stairs. He doesn’t speak. Servants greet him, and he tips his head in acknowledgment. His chamber glows in candlelight and drawings, characters on parchment that she can’t fully make out, sketches of stone fortresses and castles. She spins, smiling and giggling. 

His head snaps to hers. “I know you’re there.”

She stops spinning. “You can see me?”

He nods.

“You can hear me?”

He nods again. 

She falls at his feet, crying. After a few moments, he lifts her chin up with his index finger. She _feels_ the warmth of his fingertips. It makes the tears slip harder down her cheeks. He tucks her hair behind her ears. She feels that, too. His hands are large, well-built. Safe.

“I’m Kylo,” he whispers. His name echoes in her mind, a dream. “And your name?”

“I…” It hovers on her lips, but no words come out. “I don’t know my name. I.. suppose I don’t know who I am.”

“But I do.” His eyes search hers, a deep brown crystal of a lord’s crown. “Your name is Rey. You are from the village of Jakku. An orphan.”

 _Rey._ Like light or sunshine! Or golden honey, the kind he likes! She pulls away and dances, shouting her name. _Rey!_ But an _orphan?_ She stops turning. “I have no mother or father?”

His eyes dart away. “None to speak of.”

But… children should always have mothers and fathers. Amice had a mother and a father—the people that stood by her grave and mourned her after she was gone. 

“I imagine your parents died when you were young,” he says, still not looking at her. “Perhaps of the plague. We lost many to it some years ago.”

* * *

The walls shrink. Rey glances up. A woman hums a tune under her breath, stirring a pot by the hearth. The heat sears Rey’s face. The woman scoops Rey up, turns her around. “You’re all muddy! What have you been doing playing out there?!”

“Ben says I’m a queen! Queen of the mud people!” 

“And so you are.” The woman laughs. “Go wash up. It’s almost time for supper. Your father will be home from the fields soon.”

Ben—the boy with impossibly black hair that never smiles. He’s ten years older than her, big and strong with gangly limbs. He picks her up and twirls her around. They rule and run through the fields, playing hide and go seek. They don’t sing _Ring Around the Rosie_ until later. _A pocket full of posies. We all fall down._ When half the town lies asleep in the dirt of the churchyard. The bells toll. Rey leaves roses on their graves. 

* * *

Kylo teaches her to read and write. Instructs her in calligraphy and sketching, black charcoal ink gliding across parchment paper, her hand in his. She writes her name, curling the _R_. 

They don’t always meet. Sometimes it pours, mud coats the churchyard, and he doesn’t come. On those nights, she drifts to sleep in the dirt and waits. _Ben, Kylo, Amice, Rey._ But on the nights he does, she follows him up to the castle. He dances with her to no music, taking her hands in his and waltzing across his chamber. Playing card games like Niddy Noddy and All Fours. And most importantly, Chess. He spreads the black and white board across a table, moving pawns and bishops across the wood. She wins nearly every time, raising her arms in the air. His brown eyes dance with laughter, smile crooked, ears too big and peeking out from under his dark hair. 

She wishes she could follow him when he disappears, but he tells her to wait for him. So she does. Always in the dirt of the churchyard. He recounts stories of far off lands separated by the sea. Brings her glittering gemstones and golden rings. The only one that _sees_ her. More funerals. More roses, violets, and rosemary. A new crescent joins the others. She reads their names. Paige and Rose. She dances, roses in her hair, to a secluded part of the churchyard. 

_Rey._ She sees it there, plainly written on a gravestone. It screams in her mind. _Rey._ That’s her name, isn’t it? It has to be someone else. A different Rey.

Rain falls and dries up. The sun glimmers and hides behind clouds. Kylo enters the churchyard. She doesn’t follow. She tries to leave the wooden gates of the churchyard but can’t move. Why can’t she go home? Her mother, her father. His belly chuckles and her streams of wrinkles. The hearth, the stone, their bedrolls of straw. 

_Rey._

On a rainy night, she asks Kylo, “Why is my name on a gravestone in the churchyard?”

He pauses, looks thoughtfully at her, face glowing in the candlelight. “Because that is who you are. _Rey.”_

“But on a quarter moon?” She smiles, spinning and turning across the floor. “Why would my name be there? My name must be famous across the seas! Perhaps a beloved princess in a grand castle in Coruscant! Buried here long ago! Maybe the churchyard used to be an apple orchard that went all the way to the town! She would walk through it every morning with her prince beside her.” She grabs his hands and tries to get him to spin with her. “Think of it.”

He doesn’t move. “There is no princess, Rey.”

“Where’s your imagination? You’ve been across the sea! _Think_ of it!”

“There never was a princess. There never _will_ be a princess. There is only you.”

“Me?” The tan parchment blurs; the orange candle flames flicker. It’s like she’s seeing color for the first time. Her hand falls from his.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

She sprints from the room, through the halls, shouting at the servants, “I’m here! I’m here! Please!” They don’t see her. No one ever has since… the heat, the flames… since... She runs to the churchyard, falls at her name, the characters etched into yew wood.

She doesn’t see Kylo for an entire moon cycle. Or maybe two? She can’t count. How could she? What _is_ time? Is it measured in church bells, songs, harvest times, or games? Stones or wooden chess pieces? 

Kylo finds her crying in the mud. “It’s cold,” he says. “You should come inside.” He holds out his hand.

But what does the cold matter to her? The wind… she doesn’t feel it. It is just there, blowing and howling through her. She takes his hand.

He entertains her with games. Distractions from the truth. “Who am I? Who are you?” she asks with tears blurring her vision. 

He touches a hand to her breast. It feels solid. Real. “I am me, and you are you. I am you, and you are me.”

His words hold her on the nights he doesn’t come.

“Rey?” It’s the first time his lips linger on her name. She has nothing to compare it to. Honey? Candlelight? She takes his hand up to the castle, far away from quarter moons and dirt, fields and alleyways. “You are…” His lips explore her ear, her cheeks. “Light in this darkness,” he says. “My gacela de la muerte oscura." 

Though she doesn't understand the second half, the foreign language across the sea, she knows she is his _light._ His _sun._ His _Rey_ of light.

It helps pass the time, the days that burn into nights. Half moon, quarter moon, full moon. No moon. The stars mock her. _Another moon without you._ Then, another. She cries at her parents’ graves, remembering things she doesn’t remember. 

A dark-haired woman is executed. She looks to the sky, but her face doesn’t wilt with tears, the lines cry almost with joy. It’s like she’s _seeing_ for the first time. _Ashla,_ the light. At her throat, she fingers a crescent-shaped necklace. The flames saturate her. She smiles. _Heretic._ She burns until the pike fills with ash and a quarter moon carries her name.

“How did I die?” Rey asks Kylo, but he doesn’t answer her. More games. Always more games. Chess, backgammon, Rithmomachia. Why doesn’t he ever talk about what is _real_ and _trueー_ the baby buried and the woman burning?

She sees it, then, on the windowsill—the sunken, iron engravings that resemble a skull. The mask of Kylo Ren.

**Author's Note:**

> **Given Prompt: Rey is a ghost stuck at the cemetery where she's buried. She's fascinated by the young man (Ben) visiting his father's grave every few days. He talks about his day/life, and she listens, wishing she could talk back. (Maybe she decides to follow him)**
> 
> **Gacela:** Spanish for ghazal, Federico Garcia Lorca's adaptation of a short, rhymed, fixed verse form in Arabic poetry (Yes, I do know that Kylo told her, essentially, "You are my poem of dark death..." but it fits, I promise!)
> 
>  **Niddy Noddy:** a medieval card game for children, an early form of Cribbage
> 
> Rey is childlike in this fic based on the ideas I have about what being dead would be like--like being in a dream where you sort of regress to how your spirit most naturally was during childhood. Your true personality minus social conditioning. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Part two is coming soon!


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